


A Little Bit of Reckless

by almostsophie1



Category: Mass Effect - All Media Types, Mass Effect Trilogy
Genre: Confessions, F/F, Fluff and Humor, Runaway Space Hamster
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-14
Updated: 2020-08-14
Packaged: 2021-03-06 00:15:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,120
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25904179
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/almostsophie1/pseuds/almostsophie1
Summary: Miranda goes to check on how Shepard's holding up.Shepardwouldbe doing fine, but her hamster's on the loose again.(Alternatively titled: two struggling bisexuals, a confession, and an escape artist space hamster.)
Relationships: Miranda Lawson/Female Shepard
Comments: 11
Kudos: 115





	A Little Bit of Reckless

**Author's Note:**

> This is purely self-indulgent, but if you're here, I hope you enjoy this very fluffy one-shot set near the end of Mass Effect 2! <3

Miranda wasn’t entirely sure what she expected to find when she knocked on the door to Shepard’s cabin, but it certainly wasn’t this.

This being Commander Shepard, Savior of the Citadel, clad in coffee-stained sweatpants and a ratty t-shirt about three sizes too big.

This being Jane Shepard, the woman Miranda rebuilt one layer of tissue at a time, currently sporting a harried expression with cheeks stained pink and hair still dripping from a shower, muttering, “Hey, sorry, hamster got loose again.”

This being Shepard, who Miranda has worked with for months on end and still seems to bear surprises at every turn.

“I can come back at a better time,” Miranda says, though her eyes flick with curiosity to the absolute disaster that is Shepard’s cabin at the moment.

(Maybe Shepard’s room is always like this. Miranda wouldn’t know.)

“It’s fine. As long as you don’t mind the mess. Which- sorry about that, by the way,” Shepard says, and she steps back, allowing Miranda inside. “Just give me a second to find the furry little fucker.”

Miranda feels her mouth twitch. One of the things that no Cerberus report had on Shepard prior to the Lazarus Project was how much Shepard swore. That was a piece of Shepard that Miranda had to discover for herself, along with many, many others.

“I didn’t realize you took security on the Normandy so lightly, Shepard,” Miranda says, the door closing behind her. 

“He’s an escape artist,” Shepard answers, and she gives Miranda a crooked grin before crouching down near her unmade bed, peering beneath it. 

“A natural Houdini?” 

“Must be. Should’ve named him that instead of Fuzzy. Houdini or ‘Pain in the Ass.’”

Miranda laughs, glancing at Shepard’s desk to find it cluttered with another several mugs and tablets. “Oh, Shepard,” Miranda says, and she doesn’t try to mask the amusement in her voice. “I think you stole Chakwas’ favorite mug.”

“Shit, really?” Shepard’s head pops up from the bed, and she squints across the room. “I keep forgetting to bring those back to the Mess.”

“It’ll take you a few trips,” Miranda points out dryly. She leans against the edge of Shepard’s desk. “Can I… do anything to help with search and rescue?”

“It’s fine,” Shepard says, flattening herself out again beside her bed again. It’s not like Shepard is ever really _dignified_ , but this situation has the particular edge of humor that tends to follow Shepard’s antics. Miranda’s starting to appreciate it.

Shepard’s voice is muffled as she continues, “He almost always ends up under here.”

Miranda shakes her head. “How many times has your pet gotten loose?”

“I think this is number six? Yeah, six.” Shepard grunts, pulling herself underneath the bed frame, head disappearing from view. “Is everything alright?”

The question takes Miranda by surprise for a moment before she realizes that Shepard must think she came here with a problem. Shepard, after all, is the one who comes to _Miranda’s_ quarters to talk. It’s almost always after a mission and, though the conversations veer away from collectors and dossiers, they almost always start about something work-related, too.

“Everything’s fine,” Miranda says, and she makes her way down the steps to Shepard’s sleeping area. Maybe she _should_ have come here with a problem. But Miranda, save for the situation with Oriana, doesn’t ask for help. She’s the one with answers, not questions. 

“No explosions from the engineering deck?” Shepard’s shirt rides up as she continues to crawl further beneath her bed, a sliver of red fabric sitting above the waistband of her sweatpants. 

_Red underwear_ , Miranda notes, and files away like she does every other piece of information regarding Shepard. 

Before it was for reports to Cerberus- to the Illusive Man. 

_Commander Shepard acted recklessly in the fight to protect Vakarian and was injured in the process,_ Miranda had sent in after Omega. _Lacks concern for self-preservation._

_Commander Shepard freed Warlord Okeer’s tank-bred Krogan while alone. Continues to be impulsive and disregard advice for caution._

Now it’s information filed to the back of Miranda’s head that crops up at inopportune times, like when Miranda is trying to focus on combing through potential Collector threats and thinks instead of the way Shepard gave her strange wheezing laugh at a comment Miranda made planet-side.

“Wait, was there actually an explosion on engineering?” Shepard asks, now almost entirely beneath the bed.

“No explosions. Though there’s always one possible.”

“Because of Donnelly? Or because of Jack?”

“Both, depending on the day.”

Shepard snorts, and Miranda smiles to herself as she folds her arms over her chest. It’s not that making Shepard laugh is a particularly difficult thing to do, but Miranda isn’t really used to the easy camaraderie with Shepard- with anyone, in recent years.

“Alright, no explosions,” Shepard continues. “Did Grunt- oh shit.”

“Shepard?”

“Found him.” Shepard begins wriggling again, pulling herself out from under the bed. Her face is even ruddier than before, a few strands of wet hair sticking to her cheeks. She clutches a fluffy hamster against her chest as she sits back, the rodent’s beady little eyes staring up at Miranda. “He was sleeping on one of my shirts.”

Miranda arcs an eyebrow. “Any particular reason you keep shirts under your bed?”

Shepard grins, pushing herself to her feet. The hamster’s nose twitches, but he makes no move to launch himself out of her hands. “I’m a slob?” she offers.

Miranda shakes her head, but she doesn’t bother to keep the amusement off of her face. 

Shepard heads back up the steps to her office area, depositing the hamster back in its cage. She gives it a pat that’s all too gentle when compared to her usual ways, and then carefully closes the cage door. “Well, now that _that’s_ resolved,” she turns back to Miranda, only now looking moderately sheepish. “What’s up, XO? You have my full attention, and I have half a bottle of brandy.”

“A luxury and a necessity,” Miranda quips.

“Which one is which?” Shepard asks as she pulls a bottle from the shelf beside the hamster cage.

Miranda isn’t sure why that seems to make so much sense for Shepard, but it does. 

_Keeps the brandy next to her pet space hamster_ , Miranda notes, in the terribly fond way that she refuses to let herself think too much about. There are too many things about Shepard Miranda has noticed over the last few months.

_Shepard has a terrible temper and a loud laugh._

_Shepard lost her family at sixteen and does whatever she can to keep her crewmates’ from losing theirs._

_Shepard has a pair of red underwear, a hamster named Fuzzy, and a mostly drunk bottle of ice brandy._

“Come now, Shepard, you know brandy is a necessity,” Miranda says, extremely gratified when Shepard laughs again.

“Well then that makes my attention a luxury.” Shepard tosses the bottle at Miranda, fortunately keeping it gentle. Miranda knows how Shepard can _actually_ throw, like when she’s lobbing a grenade at a horde of husks.

“There’s barely enough for a nightcap.”

“It packs a punch,” Shepard answers, and she steps back down into the sleeping area with two shotglasses. One is most definitely from a souvenir shop on the citadel, the other a plain, milky white ceramic. “Unless you planned to get absolutely wasted.”

Miranda chuckles as she opens the bottle. “That’s a little bit harder for me to do, Shepard. Modified genes.”

Shepard’s eyebrows shoot up. “Makes it more expensive to have a good time, then.”

Miranda pours for them, Shepard holding the shot glasses steady. “No hangovers, though.”

“That’s a blessing,” Shepard says. “Fuck, I had the worst fucking hangover after-” She breaks off, frowning slightly, and Miranda sets the bottle down on Shepard’s bedside table so she can take her own glass. “After our last trip to Omega.”

Shepard seems to deflate, and she taps the side of her shot glass against Miranda’s before she flops on the bed. “Anyway, what did you come by about?”

Miranda watches her toss back the brandy, and she drinks her own, a faintly pleasant burn running down her throat. “About Omega, actually,” Miranda says, and she sits down beside Shepard, tracing her finger along the rim of her shot glass. “I read the mission report.”

“Oh,” Shepard says, and she shrugs. “Yeah. What, is Cerberus pissed that I killed Morinth? Did they secretly have a dossier for her, too?”

Miranda blinks. She prides herself at handling the unexpected with ease, but Shepard has a way of catching her off guard. “I don’t think Cerberus would have considered recruiting an Ardat-Yakshi.”

“You never know with them,” Shepard mutters. 

_Them_ . That’s been recent. Ever since they hit that derelict reaper and barely made it out alive, Shepard has been saying _them_ about Cerberus rather than _you_. 

Maybe it was that, with the Illusive Man sending them into what he knew was a trap without telling them, Shepard assumes Miranda has metaphorically cut ties—drawn an invisible line in invisible sand.

But maybe it was something else entirely.

Something about the way Shepard talks to Miranda. About the way Shepard’s eyes have softened when she looks at her. 

Miranda crosses her ankles, running her thumb along the rim of her glass.

In the beginning, Shepard looked at Miranda and saw only Cerberus, much like everyone else on the Normandy.

To be fair, Miranda _is_ Cerberus, just as much as she is anything else. Biotic, scientist, genetically engineered. Cerberus. 

But Shepard hates Cerberus, and in the beginning, Shepard seemed to hate Miranda, too.

Maybe Miranda was wrong to think that impression faded. Maybe their conversations in Miranda’s office, their camaraderie planet-side, their growing banter on the Normandy was just a pleasant facade that covered the resentment beneath.

But- no. Shepard didn’t have the patience for facades, even if they benefited her. This was the woman who told the council to go fuck themselves, after all. 

And Miranda didn’t come to Shepard’s quarters to defend herself or her ties to Cerberus. She’s done enough of that over the last several months anyway.

“I can’t speak on Illusive Man’s thoughts regarding Ardat-Yakshi,” Miranda says, breaking the silence that stretched between them. “I can only speak on my own.”

Shepard makes a noncommittal noise, but she sets her shot glass down on the night table. “Which are?”

Miranda traces her finger around another loop of the glass rim. “Morinth seemed formidable.”

“She was.”

“And you had to play along, unarmed, to catch her off guard.” Miranda can only think of what she might’ve sent to the Illusive Man several months ago about the mission. More assessments of Shepard’s recklessness- more concerns over how she put herself at risk unnecessarily for the sake of others.

Shepard braces her hands behind on her on the mattress, looking off somewhere in the direction of her cabin door. “Yup.”

“Shepard,” Miranda says, and she’s surprised at how soft her voice is. “Are you alright?”

There’s another stretch of silence, this time with Miranda meeting Shepard’s eyes. 

“Minus a headache the size of a small planet, I’m fine. Alcohol and mind control attempts don’t make for a fantastic combination.” Shepard rubs her hand beneath her nose. “Other than that? I’m great. Nothing to worry about.”

“I’m not here for a psych eval, Shepard,” Miranda says, and she picks the bottle up again and refills Shepard’s glass first, then her own. “I’m here as a… friend.”

The word comes out significantly more stilted than it should. Sincerity tends to do that.

Shepard looks back at Miranda again, and this time there’s a crooked smile playing on her lips. “A friend, huh?”

Miranda downs her shot and swallows her pride with the brandy. “You’ve been a friend to me, at least. I’d like to offer the same to you.”

Shepard’s smile evens out, eyes softening. “You know, I realized on Nos Astra that I considered you to be a friend.”

Warmth follows the track of the alcohol, starting on Miranda’s lips and coursing down her throat, light and bright. “I appreciate what you did there Shepard. Helping with Oriana-”

“I don’t mean like that,” Shepard says, waving her hands and sloshing some brandy out of her glass. She seems to realize she spilled and quickly takes her shot before licking her wrist to catch the droplets there, tongue darting out.

Heat pools in Miranda’s stomach for an entirely different reason. 

“I meant,” Shepard says, and Miranda pulls her wandering thoughts back into place, “that I just looked at you and wanted you to be happy. I wanted you to talk to your sister because you deserved to have her in your life, you know?”

Miranda stares for a few moments.

No one has ever considered Miranda’s happiness before.

Not her father. Certainly not the Illusive Man.

It’s always what Miranda can _do_ for them. What she can give. 

Miranda’s throat grows tight, and she clears it, caught between discomfort at growing emotional over something so simple and a confusing tumble of feelings for Shepard who, once again, caught Miranda off guard.

“Is it _that_ surprising?” Shepard asks, and she reaches across Miranda to set her shot glass down. Her damp hair smells a little bit like eucalyptus, another thing Miranda uselessly (helplessly, even), files away. “I know you have friends, XO.”

“Contacts,” Miranda finds herself saying. “Friends aren’t so easy to come by.”

“Maybe because you don’t tend to let people close,” Shepard says. 

“You saw what happened with Niket, Shepard. Once I cut ties with my father, I quickly learned that trust could easily mean a knife to the back.”

“I know.” Shepard sniffs before rubbing her hand beneath her nose again. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to turn this into your psych eval either. I just- I’m glad you at least consider us friends.”

“I do,” Miranda says. 

Shepard lets out a soft sigh and stretches out back, lying down horizontally across her bed with her feet still planted on the floor. “It’s nice having a night on board to actually rest. That’s rare shit these days.”

“And here I thought you might be letting your hamster escape because you were bored.”

Shepard laughs- the wheezing one, and throws an arm over her eyes. “Of all the ways to spend my free time, pulling Fuzzy out from under my bed isn’t really my favorite.”

“I don’t know,” Miranda says, smirking,” it seemed like you were enjoying yourself crawling around on the floor.”

“Oh, fuck you,” Shepard snorts, and she pulls her arm back to her side, eyes crinkled with her laughter. “And by the way you’re not allowed to tell anyone else you saw me crawling around under my bed looking for my evil hamster.”

“It seems like some excellent blackmail material to me.”

“You wouldn’t dare,” Shepard says, sitting up again. Her hair is rumpled now, worn t-shirt sliding off her shoulder.

“I would.”

“My reputation would fall apart!”

“Ah, yes. The fearsome Commander Shepard felled by an escaped space hamster,” Miranda says with a sigh. 

“Then I guess I’d have to tell them about that morning on Tuchanka when you woke up with that weird bird creature nesting in your hair.”

“That never happened.”

“I have picture proof.”

“I asked EDI to delete them.”

“I’ll have Kasumi retrieve them.”

Miranda stares at Shepard for a few moments before they both dissolve into laughter, the ridiculousness of it all settling in.

“Hey, XO, you want another drink?” Shepard asks.

“I could be convinced.”

“You have the fearsome Commander Shepard offering to pour you a shot,” Shepard says, wrinkling her nose. “What more convincing do you need?”

Miranda pauses, glancing around the room. “Do you have any snacks?”

_Shepard keeps a bag of freeze-dried blueberries in the drawer beneath her armor pieces._

_Shepard won’t shut up while watching vids, pointing out every single plot hole in the Quarian film Tali recommended._

_Shepard asks if it’s okay to hold someone’s hand before she takes it._

_Shepard-_

Shepard kisses with the taste of brandy and blueberries on her tongue, and Miranda kisses her back with a hand settled on her waist, right above her sweatpants and the band of her bright red underwear.

“Shit, this isn’t too much, is it?” Shepard asks, her lips a breath away from Miranda’s, their foreheads pressed together. “You said _friends_ and now I’m all over you-”

“Not nearly enough over me,” Miranda answers, which gets another laugh from Shepard, who kisses Miranda’s nose in response before pulling back.

“I like you, okay? And I don’t want to fuck this up.”

Miranda retracts her hand from Shepard’s waist, but Shepard catches it with her own, linking their fingers and settling it down in her lap.

Down at the foot of the bed, the Quarian vid continues to pay, voices slightly muffled from the way Shepard had carelessly tossed it.

“This is probably a bad idea,” Miranda says, mostly to herself. 

Shepard just squeezes her hand, grinning. “You think all of my ideas are bad.”

Miranda laughs softly, shaking her head. “Impulsive. Reckless. Hot-headed.”

“Flatterer.”

Miranda nearly rolls her eyes. “Those weren’t compliments.”

“I’ll take what I can get with you, XO,” Shepard says, and then she raises their clasped hands and presses a kiss to the side of Miranda’s wrist. “So would you say us trying to be anything is also reckless?”

“Yes,” Miranda says, but her heart is doing something in her chest that she hasn’t felt in quite some time. “But it’s worked for you this far.”

“So we’ll try to make it work a little farther?” Shepard asks with a lopsided grin. 

“You’re determined to make this impossible mission we’re on doable,” Miranda answers, and she leans forward, slipping one knee over Shepard’s thigh, pushing herself upright so she’s looking down at Shepard. She tucks a strand of Shepard’s disheveled hair behind her ear with her free hand. “So let’s make this doable, too.”

“You’re so romantic,” Shepard says, but her eyes are on Miranda’s lips despite her teasing. “We’ll skip the fancy candlelight dinners and stick with fighting thresher maws on Tuchanka.”

“I will _personally_ murder you if you involve me in another thresher maw fight, Shepard.”

“Promises, promises,” Shepard says, and she splays her fingers across Miranda’s waist, leaning up to catch Miranda’s lips with her own.

There’s a loud, victorious squeak then, and both Miranda and Shepard freeze.

Slowly, Miranda shifts, looking over her shoulder, Shepard’s hands still above her hips.

There, on Shepard’s shelf across the room and up in the office area, the door to the hamster cage is wide open.

“How is that even possible?” Miranda mutters to herself as Shepard leans around her.

“That fu-”

**Author's Note:**

> @ bioware miranda lawson is bi, thank u


End file.
